The family of a late Vietnam veteran was awarded a piece of their loved one’s time in the Marine Corps decades later on Friday, FOX 13 Tampa Bay reported.
In 1966, USMC Corporal Larry Hughes lost his dog tag while serving near Da Nang Province in Vietnam. Hughes was a humble man who didn’t talk much about his service, according to his his son Carl’s, and never said a word about the loss of the important piece of identification.
In October 2022, former Virginia Senator Jim Webb and Notre Dame professor Michael Desch took a group of students to visit the province. As they were exploring near an airstrip used by the US military, a villager approached them and told them that he had six dog tags found plowing rice fields over the years.
Desch said the villager had one of the tags on a key chain, so he asked if they could have it to bring back to the United States. The man complied and the label returned to the United States.
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US Marine Corps Corporal Larry Hughes, a Vietnam veteran. (WTVT)
Webb, a former Secretary of the Navy, went to work locating the person to whom it belonged. After learning that Hughes was dead, Webb discovered that the veteran’s son and sister were alive in Levy County, Florida.
“I was like, ‘We need to find this person.’ It’s so symbolic,” Webb told FOX 13.
In a joint effort with the Pentagon, Webb arranged for the dog tag to be delivered to the Hughes family in Inglis, Florida.
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The dog tag of USMC Corporal Larry Hughes that he lost in 1966 while serving in Vietnam. (WTVT)
Patricia Hughes Prickett said she couldn’t believe it and that receiving her brother’s ID was like “a step back in time.”
“I was always very proud of Larry,” she said. “There was never a time when I wasn’t proud of him, and I’m glad he was recognized.”
Part of the plate given to the family of the late USMC Corporal Larry Hughes upon the return of his dog tag which had been missing in Vietnam for 57 years. (WTVT)
His family said that recovering the special piece five decades later from a place on the other side of the world that used to be enemy territory is a “lesson” for all of us.
“The two parties hated each other and look how they come together now, how quickly you can build that friendship, that bond,” Carl said. “And that’s what the world needs, for everyone to be able to get along and love each other.”
Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb presents a lost dog tag and badge belonging to the late USMC Corporal Larry Hughes to the veteran’s family. (WTVT)
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Hughes reportedly never explained to his family why he didn’t say much about his time in Vietnam, but his sister thinks it might have to do with feeling his service wasn’t appreciated by some at the time.
Prickett said it “means the world” that Vietnam veterans are finally getting the recognition they didn’t get before.
